The Readaholics and the Falcon Fiasco (7 page)

Ah. Kirsten felt slighted, which explained her nastiness.

“Maybe she got promoted because she worked hard, was good at her job, and had been here
longer than some other people,” I suggested, knowing as the words left my mouth that I should have kept silent.

Kirsten’s eyes widened. “I never expected to get that promotion; I only interviewed for the practice,” she said, confirming my suspicions. “I was only saying that—”

I didn’t want to hear any more gossip about Ivy. There wasn’t a woman over fifteen who hadn’t been stupid about a man at one time or another—witness the fifteen years total I’d spent hung up on a man who was marrying another woman in two weeks—and I wasn’t going to pass judgment on her or listen to this envious twentysomething coworker do so. “Look, I’ve got another appointment to get to. I think I’ve got enough to get started with. I can call you if I have questions, right?”

“Uh, sure,” Kirsten said, taken aback.

Setting my half-f mug in the sink, I used a paper towel to pick up the ivied canister—I read enough crime fiction to know all about fingerprints. Maybe I should adopt “What would Kinsey Millhone do?” as my new mantra and have it made into one of those rubber bracelets: WWKMD. I tucked the canister into my purse.

“I think Ivy’s brother would like to have this,” I said, not making it a question. Before Kirsten could object, I made “great to be working with you” noises and said good-bye. My heels clicked on the stairs as I descended, and my mind whirled with memories of Ivy, excited about getting hired into the CFO’s office, excited about working on an accounting degree she never quite finished, excited
about a budding romance that had started two years ago.

She’d been coy about not naming her partner, calling him “Loverboy,” and although I’d suspected his identity, I hadn’t challenged her on it. She hadn’t wanted him to leave his wife initially; indeed, after her short-lived marriage she’d sworn she’d never marry again and preferred to date married men because they didn’t want “permanent.” Within the last six months, though, I’d gotten the feeling she was unhappy with the status quo. If Kirsten was right and Ivy and Loverboy had broken up, had she initiated the breakup or had he? Thinking back to her remarks on Monday evening, I suspected the latter.

That thought popped into my head as I reached the small lobby and spotted Clay Shumer—“Loverboy,” if Kirsten was to be believed—shaking hands with another man I recognized. Troy Widefield Sr., Brooke’s father-in-law, looked even sterner than usual as he gripped Clay’s hand. Clay, generally full of the kind of shallow charm and bonhomie I associated with movie depictions of con men and gigolos, looked slightly green as his head bobbed in response to whatever Mr. Widefield was saying. His caramel-colored mullet—dyed, I knew, because Sheena at Sheena’s Hair Jungle had a big mouth—stayed stiffly in place, even as his head moved, and I suspected industrial-strength hair spray. Mr. Widefield, who had an equally full head of hair, although his was white and undyed, looked fitter and trimmer than the twenty-years-younger Clay. I hoped Clay’s greenish color was a sign of
his grief over Ivy’s death. She’d loved him. They’d been together for at least two years. He should have the decency to be sad.

“Gentlemen,” I murmured in greeting as I edged around them to get to the doors. I didn’t feel like talking to either of them.

Mr. Widefield recognized me immediately; he was the kind of guy who could instantly put a face to a name and remember where he met someone. It was a key skill for my business and I was pretty good at it, too, but not in Mr. Widefield’s league. Clay Shumer took a bit longer to place me, nodding when Mr. Widefield said, “Hello, Amy-Faye.” Civilities observed, he gave Clay a sharp look and left.

“Thanks for the opportunity to organize your offsite,” I said to Clay, figuring I should say something politic. It took him a minute to tune in to me, preoccupied as he was by watching Mr. Widefield stride toward the parking lot.

He wiped the frown from his face, replaced it with an insincere smile, and said, “I’m sure you’ll do a great job for us. Ivy Donner recommended you very highly.”

“She was one of my best friends.” My gaze challenged him to make a similar statement, to acknowledge Ivy’s importance to him.

“We’re going to miss her in the office; that’s for sure,” he said.

Wow, what an epitaph. If Ivy’s ghost was around to hear that lukewarm declaration, she must want to slap him. I considered doing it for
her. WWKMD? Probably not slap him and risk an assault arrest, I decided reluctantly.

“She was too young to die, too full of life, too—” He ran a hand down his face. For a moment I thought he would say more, but he only nodded, turned his back on me, and started up the stairs. I fancied he was blinking back tears, and I felt better on Ivy’s behalf.

As I made my way to the van, it crossed my mind that he might blame himself for her death. If he had recently broken up with her, and if he believed she’d committed suicide, he might think the two events were connected. Even though I didn’t know Clay Shumer well, and I couldn’t help but despise a man who was cheating on his wife, he shouldn’t have to live with that burden if it wasn’t true. Yet another reason to prove that Ivy hadn’t killed herself.

*   *   *

I drove straight to the police department. I was going to be late for my appointment with Madison Taylor, but it couldn’t be helped. I wasn’t walking around with Ivy’s tea canister in my purse a moment longer than necessary. I parked and called Al and asked him to apologize to Madison when she arrived and start the meeting without me. Inspecting my teeth in the rearview mirror and slicking on a melon-colored lipstick, I approached the police department. The building was redbrick, separated from the street by the sidewalk, and one block off the downtown square between Mike’s Bikes and A World Apart, the new travel agency. Pink and
purple petunias frothed from planters outside the building, all part of Kerry Sanderson’s plan to make all parts of city government seem appealing and approachable, I guessed.

I pulled open the modern glass door, which didn’t go with the building’s façade, and stepped into a cool reception area with a counter, molded plastic chairs, and what might have been the building’s original tile floor. I’d lived in Heaven all my life and never been in here before. My brother and a couple of buddies had gotten arrested as young teens for vandalizing street signs, but my folks had made me and my sisters stay home when they came to spring him. I guess I’d expected something like Andy Griffith’s office in Mayberry, with a jail cell in one corner, but this was more like my doctor’s waiting area. Very disappointing.

I approached the counter, behind which Mabel Appleman, who was in her seventies and had been the police dispatcher since before telephones were invented, I was pretty sure, was reading a Tess Gerritsen book. Mabel occasionally came to Readaholics meetings when we were reading a police procedural. I told her that I needed to see Detective Hart. Mabel squinted at me and fumbled for the glasses tucked into her tightly permed gray curls. With the blue-framed specs perched halfway down her roman nose, she looked me up and down.

“Amy-Faye Johnson, what in tarnation do you want with a police detective? You don’t look scared enough to have been attacked, besides which it’s broad daylight and no one but a total
moron like the Yoder boy would try to mug someone while the sun is shining, and it can’t be a domestic abuse matter because you’re
still
not married, and not likely to be now that the Elvaston boy is in the way of getting hitched to a New Yorker. I don’t see any obvious injuries, so you weren’t the victim of a hit-and-run—”

I interrupted her litany of the reasons that hadn’t brought me to the police department. “It’s about Ivy Donner.”

“Oh.” She pursed thin, fuchsia-painted lips. The lipstick had bled into thin lines around her lips, creating a fuchsia halo around her mouth. “He’s out on police business. The chief is here, though. I’m sure he can help you.”

I was faintly disappointed that I wasn’t going to get to see Detective Lindell Hart. I hadn’t been conscious of looking forward to seeing him again, and my disappointment surprised me. Before I could decide if maybe I wanted to wait to turn in the canister until Detective Hart was available, Mabel had pushed an intercom button and notified Chief Uggams that I wished to talk to him.

“CC to see you about the Donner situation,” she said. She looked up and explained to me, “CC is my own little code. It means ‘concerned citizen.’ Much more efficient than having to say con-cerned ci-ti-zen.” She drew the words out to their longest possible extent.

“Great idea.”

She nodded, satisfied, as Chief Uggams appeared in the doorway. About my father’s age, he’d been deputy chief until Chief Sanderson,
Kerry’s ex, gave up the job about three years ago. He was a black man with short-cropped grizzled hair, a barrel chest, and a no-nonsense air. His khaki HPD uniform had sharp creases in the slacks and short sleeves, and his brown belt bristled with heavy-looking police paraphernalia, including a gun. I could see from a groove in the leather that he’d had to let the belt out a couple of notches. He and my dad used to play poker the last Thursday of the month with a group of other guys; maybe they still did.

“Amy-Faye.” He approached like he might hug me but offered me his hand instead. My hand disappeared into his fleshy palm. “What can I do for you? Boyfriend troubles? I heard that young man of yours has gotten himself engaged. Want me to harass him with parking tickets and jaywalking charges for not treating you right? Too bad there’s no law against stupidity or I could arrest him for not sticking with the nicest, smartest gal in town.” He chuckled and ushered me back to his office.

I barely refrained from rolling my eyes. Small towns were like Facebook without an Internet connection; once something got on the “wall” of collective memory, it was there to stay. No delete button. It was enough, sometimes, to make me want to move to Denver, or even out of state. “I appreciate the offer, but—”

“How’s Norm? Still cheating at Texas Hold’em? Since I took this job, I haven’t had as much opportunity to play as I’d like. You tell him ‘hey’ for me, okay?”

“Will do. Dad’s doing great. Mom, too. What
I’m really here about, though”—I drew the canister carefully from my purse—“is Ivy Donner. I heard she was poisoned with oleander in her tea.”

The chief’s eyes narrowed and he sank into his desk chair, waving me to a sagging love seat with brown leather cushions scoured over the years to a pale tan in the middle by thousands of butts. I sat, holding the canister cupped in my hands. It felt like an urn and I blinked hard twice to dispel the image.

“Where’d you hear that?”

“Her brother. He said you think she committed suicide.” I waited for him to correct me, but he remained silent, regarding me with brown, slightly bloodshot eyes. “She wouldn’t do that,” I said. “I’ve known Ivy half my life and she was flat-out not the suicidal type. She was a ‘pick yourself up and get on with living’ kind of person. Even after her divorce. Even when her folks died in that crash. She wouldn’t kill herself over a breakup with a man, if that’s what you think.”

He didn’t tackle my points. “What’ve you got there?” He nodded toward the canister.

“I was at her office today. I’m setting up an offsite—but that doesn’t matter. I saw this in the break room and Kirsten Wiggins told me it’s Ivy’s special tea. I got to thinking that if someone meant to make her sick . . . well, it would be easier to slip something into her tea at the office than at her house . . .” I petered out under the weight of his stare.

“You got any reason to think someone might want to make Ivy sick?”

Good question. Lola and I had carefully avoided talking about possible suspects, and I hesitated to point a finger now. Ham was going to inherit her estate and he always needed money. Kirsten Wiggins was clearly PO’d that Ivy had gotten the promotion she wanted; she might have thought making Ivy throw up was suitable revenge. Clay? I needed to know more about who had broken up with whom and why. “Not really,” I said.

The chief shook his head slowly. “Amy-Faye.”

He stopped, gathering his thoughts, trying to find a gentle way to tell me to butt out, I could tell. I clutched the canister tighter.

“Amy-Faye, this is police business. It’s not for civilians to be messing with. The pathologist’s report said Ivy Donner died of oleander poisoning. We have no reason to suspect foul play and good evidence to suggest the poison was self-administered. That is, that she killed herself. I know it’s hard to accept that a friend might be that unhappy and we didn’t notice. But it’s not your fault. Some people are damn good at hiding their emotions. I’ve been a cop for more’n thirty years and I can’t count the number of times I’ve heard people say about their loved ones, ‘I never knew he was angry enough to shoot,’ or ‘He was always smiling—I can’t believe he slit his wrists.’ Take my word for it: It happens.”

My fault! That thought hadn’t even crossed my mind. Now that he’d planted it, however, it took rapid root.
Had
Ivy been depressed? If I’d made time to get together with her more often, might I have noticed her unhappiness?

“If you could just test this—” I proffered the canister.

“Let your friend rest in peace,” the chief said, shaking his head no. “The department has more important priorities—”

A footstep at the door brought our heads around. Detective Hart filled the doorway, gaze going from me to his boss. I’d forgotten how tall he was. “Mabel told me Miss Johnson was here with some information pertinent to the Donner investigation.”

“This.” I held up the canister, not quite ready to give up. “It’s Ivy’s tea stash from the office break room. I just want you to test it. What if there’s oleander in here? Someone else could have drunk it and gotten sick, which is why I took it. Partly why. If there’s oleander in here, it’ll prove she didn’t kill herself, right?” My eyes searched his face, looking for signs that he believed me, but I couldn’t read his neutral expression. “I mean, there’d be no reason for her to poison this batch and whatever she drank at home if she killed herself.”